From his law offices outside Harrisburg, Marc Scaringi says he could see the country was headed in the wrong direction.

Things were going so badly under the Democratic leadership of President Barack Obama and U.S. Sen. Bob Casey Jr., that Scaringi says he was forced to get back into the messy business he left for greener pastures over a decade ago: politics.

For the last year, the former aide to former Sen. Rick Santorum and Pennsylvania Attorney General Mike Fisher has been making his case to county-level leaders around the state and this week he stopped in to The Morning Call offices in Allentown.

He's got a lot of competition. The Pittsburgh native and married father of three (soon to be four) is one of seven announced candidates who have surfaced in recent months hoping to take on the once securely-ensconced Casey in a 2012 election the party now sees as more winnable.

Even Scaringi admits that in better economic times, beating Casey would be a tall order. "This is not a typical election year," he said. "Millions of people are out of work and we are confronting massive unfunded entitlement programs."

Like most Republicans, Scaringi said he'd want to rein in entitlement spending, repeal Obama's healthcare law, cut the deficit and balance the federal budget, preferably by Constitutional amendment. He also said he's a supporter of gun rights and an opponent of abortion.

He portrayed himself as an outsider and small business owner yet with an understanding of how Washington D.C. works based on his prior experience there. He supports limiting Senators to two terms.

State GOP chairman Robert Gleason has said any serious candidate should have $1 million in the bank by the end of the year, but Scaringi wouldn't commit to hitting that mark, saying he's prioritized reaching out directly to Republican primary voters.

"For the past year, I have been runing for this office and focusing all my energy on creating a grass-roots network," he said.